Bears Home Solutions/Ben Franklin Plumbing

We had a very poor experience with Benjamin Franklin plumbing on Friday 3/29/19. Very overpriced for the work done. I felt they took advantage of my parents for the simple replacement of a sump pump in North Fargo. The technician (Kevin) came and estimated 3.5 hours to do the work. Wrote out an estimate/quote for parts and labor and dispatch fee for around $670. The work, however, took hardly an hour, and the pump 1/3 hp Pro Series 1033 was valued at $150 online, lets even say $200 with a retail markup. That works out to around $470 for 1 hour of work. Are you kidding me? Other places around town could do it for a similar cast iron pump for around $300 total (parts and labor and the trip out). That is a price that seems to work out for what you would expect labor charges to be for plumbing in this area. They can charge whatever they want as a business, and my parents did sign their contract, but I feel it is unethical to not charge based on the hours worked and instead inflate the estimated time for labor beforehand and then get people to sign on to it so they are obligated to pay. My parents were in a vulnerable position and worried about their sump pump not working in this time of flooding, and ended up signing a contract that was way off of what is a reasonable price for such work. My parents as nice as they are tried to talk to the manager (Brad) nicely and he said he would go as low as $500 but he pointed out that they did sign a contract, after all, a contract with an inflated estimate mind you. I would have expected them to bring the price down for the hours worked which would make it $300 - $400. They did no such thing when given the opportunity. They also did not show my parents that it was working as it should be at the end which I would also expect to give them peace of mind. Based on this experience, I would highly recommend you go somewhere else for any such work or at least call around. You will most likely get the same or better quality work done for much less with a little more looking. Also remember that these folks charge a dispatch fee of $69 for just coming out to do an estimate. This isn't a minimum charge for any work done like some other places have. This is in addition to any work agreed upon after the estimate. These folks have lost my business and my trust for good.